January is most definitely not anyone’s ideal month for being out and about in the city. All we want is to stay indoors and drink mulled wine. Lucky for us we can do that AND enjoy lots of great music thanks to Boom Collective and their annual NYC Winter Jazzfest. It takes place over 2 nights, 1/7 and 1/8, at 5 West Village venues; (Le) Poisson Rouge, Kenny’s Castaway, The Bitter End, Zinc Bar and Sullivan Hall, all located within a few blocks of each other. Featuring more than 60 cutting-edge jazz and experimental artists, this is the kind of festival that will keep you somewhere warm for hours at a time. We haven’t been promised mulled wine, but we know we won’t miss our house much with these stellar line-ups.

IFC premiered this music video by Charles Bradley, the latest old soul singer to be rediscovered. The video was directed by Poull Brien and shot in Brooklyn on the Bed-Stuy streets where Charles Bradley was raised and in the Bushwick projects where he currently resides.

Bradley’s album No Time For Dreaming will be released on January 25th on Dunham Records, an imprint of Daptone.

Tonight, December 20th, join us for our second to last DJ event in 2010 at Good Units at Hudson, with a very special set by the Father of the Electro-Funk Sounds, Afrika Bambaataa. So break out your high-tops, take a look at this video below to review your classic dance moves, and get ready to ‘get up and get down’. Doors open at 8pm, with warm-up provided by Florida native Sonny Daze. As always, entrance is free but strictly RSVP, and you must be 21+ to enter.

We’ve truly enjoyed watching the rise of Janelle Monáe this year, whose album ArchAndroid places in just about every single ‘Best of 2010′ music list. Her success may be due to her unclassifiable space funk music, or her stage presence, or her concept of the Android in the Cybertronic Purgatory, or the genuine groundswell of support around her throughout the past two years; either way we’re glad to see her with the critical acclaim she deserves:

“No other album this year seems so alive with possibility. Monáe is young and fearless enough to try anything, gifted enough to pull almost all of it off, and large-hearted enough to make it feel like a communal experience: Us rather than Me. She may yet surpass it – let’s hope so – but for now, this is one hell of a show.”- Guardian UK (#1 Album)